


autopsy

by superkawaiifreak



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: AU, AkuRoku Month 2020 (Kingdom Hearts), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, I Will Go Down With This Ship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:46:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25827643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superkawaiifreak/pseuds/superkawaiifreak
Summary: He's texting Roxas for the first time in years, exhilarated and punch-drunk. And then he sees the wrong-way driver. AU, Akuroku Month 2020.
Relationships: Akuroku, Axel/Roxas
Kudos: 8
Collections: Akuroku Week 2020





	autopsy

[ _autopsy_ ]

* * *

So there is Axel and then there is him. 

Roxas brings the tiny camcorder closer to his face, fighting with the decades-old interface, trying to pause the grainy video right at the moment he and Axel locked eyes from the across the room. They had all been laughing about something - it was Olette’s birthday - and Xion, high off her brand-new film degree, had recorded the whole party. It made his heart sink now, seeing their old lives from the other side of the lens.

After high school, they had lost touch with one another, he and Axel, and while Roxas went to community college in the next town over, Axel went to some small liberal arts school in the northeast. With the friends you leave behind, you adopt a new way of treating one another, a new way of conveying your feelings to them. Some people can go years without a word; others prefer to get drinks once a year; and some only want to follow you on Twitter. 

Three years after college, the things between them held no special meaning. They floated in the empty numbness together when they returned to their hometown for Christmas dinners with the old group, clinking and sloshing their glasses at the town’s trendiest gastropub, masks never cracking. The sepia-stained conversations lost color entirely when, on the drive home, both of them, independent of each other, ignored the horrible lurching in their chests and wiped their eyes.

A crusted-over gash in Axel’s shoulder and Roxas’s nervous laughter as he wrapped his shirt around Axel’s arm. The smell of warm hay in wet mud. The sight of Axel in his long, black robes as he ascended the stage to deliver the valedictorian address. How he floated when he walked, his skin opalescent and pearly, the nakedness of his lower lip on the jumbotron. His dark, fiery laughter first in Roxas’s ear, then his neck, and then finally, his mouth.

The camcorder overheats and startles Roxas with its high-pitched whinnying. Dejected, he turns over and buries his face in the sheets, abhorring the urge to call Axel right now, instead mocking himself for possessing a desire so girlish. He unlocks his phone and goes right to his instagram DMs, scrolling for the handle  _ got_it_memorized,  _ and analyzes their chat history with the focus and attention of a private investigator. Two years ago, Axel had responded to his story: “We should hang out!” And then one year ago, Roxas messaged him: “Ax, what’s up! Long time no see.” 

He jumps when a tiny arrow appears at the bottom of his chat screen, the cold and erotic frenzy of disbelief shooting up his spine. Then,  _ two new messages.  _ He scrolls, numb, and checking the time -- it is past midnight -- reads: “Roxas. Call me. 617-510-8080.”

From the other side of the world, Axel is gunning it down a glorious dark street in China, the glowing lanterns illuminating his face, cell phone at his thigh. He is high on life, can’t get enough of the sunshine, the mountains, the booze. Street vendors cheerfully cry out to passersby. One vendor has just picked fresh cilantro, another barbecues chicken thigh. They all sweat. The wind itself caresses Axel’s whole body with its soft hands as he blazes into the night. A monstrous engine roar can be heard in the distance.

But Roxas can’t make up his mind, as he’s never been able to make up his mind, and can’t call, will not call. He types in Axel’s number thirteen times and deletes it all but the last. The breaths come laboriously. A quickened heart rate will not deter him. He calls, seeing it all pass before him, and then a strange faint image of a warm sunset, a brief whiff of charred meat.

Axel’s looking at his phone with a goofy smile on his face, the name  _ Roxas  _ popping up in green, and as his lips curl upwards to form the word  _ hey,  _ he sees, with fury and indignation, a monstrous pickup truck barreling towards him, the horrible lurching of its engine the last thing he would ever witness.

There would be no calls, no touches, nothing.

* * *


End file.
